We wish to congratulate Mr Christopher Lattimer, Honorary Consultant from the West London Vascular and Interventional Centre, for his lecture on discord outcomes on the anterior accessory saphenous vein 5-year results at the 15th Romanian Congress of Phlebology 2017 held in Timisoara. The photograph is of him receiving the certificate of excellence (right) from Professor Sorin Olariu (left), who is the head of the department at ”Victor Babeș” Timișoara, Romania. Mr Lattimer from the Josef Pflug Vascular Laboratory, Ealing Hospital & Imperial College, recommended in his presentation that the discord outcome analysis (DOA) should become part of the reporting standard of all randomised clinical trials on superficial venous intervention. Currently, only successful outcomes are reported in isolation which may give misleading information. Highlighting the discrepancies when one outcome is in disagreement with another outcome will provide transparency. This is an outcome currently lacking from all RCTs on superficial venous intervention.

The undergraduate School’s annual awards ceremony took place on Wednesday 15 November at Imperial’s Charing Cross campus.

The awards are presented jointly by the School of Medicine and the School of Medicine Students’ Union

In conjunction with the Medical Students’ Union, teaching staff of all levels and disciplines are recognised with a variety of awards, spanning both clinical and non-clinical teachers, personal tutors, teaching fellows and student support roles.

Students who nominate staff members are invited to speak about the recipient prior to each award’s presentation. This year, each noted in particular the care and attention given to individual students, and the emphasis put on the importance of learning, by the staff members recognised. (more…)

New appointments

We have had two clinical lecturers appointed this year (including one NIHR funded) – Tristan Lane and Sarah Onida

We have had two new research fellows appointed to the department: Amar Abdullah and Lydia Hanna

Sarah Onida – Clinical Lecturer in Vascular Surgery

November 2017 – Second prize at the American College of Phlebology for the following oral presentation: “Clinical Scoring, Disease Specific Quality of life and Duplex Features in Chronic Venous Disease”

September 2017 – First prize at the VI International Interuniversity Meeting for the following oral presentation: “The relationship between disease specific clinical and quality of life scores in chronic venous disease”

Ylenia Perone, clinician and PhD student has been awarded a registration grant from the Society for Endocrinology to attend the conference SfE BES 2017.

Held in November in Harrogate, this annual conference brings together experts from both the clinical and scientific field working on endocrine diseases and hormone-dependent tumours.

Ylenia is working on oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer in Dr. Luca Magnani’s group in the Department of Surgery and Cancer. Dr Sheba Jarvis, working in Bevan’s group in the same Department is an active member of the Society for Endocrinology and she sponsored Ylenia for this registration grant. (more…)

Dr Pav Sarai (PhD student in Paul Strutton’s Lab) won first prize for his talk on developing magnetic brain stimulation for neuro-monitoring during vascular surgery at the recent Vascular Anaesthesia Society of Great Britain and Ireland meeting. This pilot work (partly carried out by MRes student Charlotte Luff) on healthy subjects paves the way for exploration of this technique during complex aortic aneurysm surgery, where there is a risk of paralysis.

Held in Lyon in September, Janet’s lecture at the annual meeting focused on evidence-based vascular surgery. Janet will also be giving the British Journal of Surgery invited lecture at the annual meeting of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland on 24 November in Manchester. (more…)

The title ‘ESCMID Fellow’ recognises individuals who have achieved professional excellence and outstanding contribution to the field of microbiology and infectious diseases. Professor Friedland’s research interests lie in innate immune response and novel host directed therapies for tuberculosis and migrant health. Professor Drobniewski’s research group focuses on all aspects of tuberculosis and its interaction with HIV.

Jonathan Friedland and Francis Drobniewski

Since its founding in 1983, ESCMID has evolved to become Europe’s leading society in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases with members from all European countries and all continents. Professors Friedland and Drobniewski are amongst the first 120 Fellows to be selected from a membership of around 7,500. A complete list of Fellows is available on the ESCMID website.

Awards for Teaching Excellence for NHS Teachers

This event took place on Wednesday 16 November at the Drewe Lecture Theatre and was a chance for all our valued NHS teachers to be recognised for all the hard work they put into teaching our medical students. Primary Care was represented by Dr Beena Gohil, who won a Teaching Excellence Award.

Also featured was the inaugural lecture of Professor Mark Nelson, Lead of HIV services at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – “Patient Zero to PrEP: HIV past, present and future”. (more…)

Students who completed their BSc in the 2015-16 year enjoyed an evening of prize-giving at the Drewe Lecture Theatre, Charing Cross Campus on Wednesday 9 November.

They were competing for the Charles Power Prize (for Best Overall Performance in the BSc), as well as the Evelyn de Rothschild Prize (for Best BSc Project). Three students were in competition for each prize, and each gave a 10-minute presentation on their chosen topic, which was followed with five minutes of questions from a distinguished panel of BSc Pathway Director judges and members of the audience.

Dr Sophie Rutschmann, Dr Mark Sullivan and Professor Barbara Bain were tasked with judging the Charles Power Prize, and awarded First Place to Daniel Ang Jia for his Immunity and Infection presentation entitled, ‘Vaccines: lessons in problem solving with basic science’. Second Place went to Janaki Desai for her Pharmacology-based ‘Do antidepressants actually work?’ presentation. Third Place was awarded to Florence Mouy, for ‘Myocardial Hibernation’ in the field of Cardiovascular Science.

The Evelyn de Rothschild Prize for Best BSc Project was judged by Professor Alison McGregor, Dr Chris John and Professor Louise Donnelly. After the three presentations, it was Sophie Glover who came out on top with First Place for her Neuroscience and Mental Health project, ‘Understanding the mechanisms behind ketogenic diet in gliobastoma multiforme’. A second appearance from Daniel Ang Jia was his project, ‘Immune thrombocytopenia and the MIF surrounding it’, based again in Immunity and Infection, which came in second. This was followed in Third Place by a Reproductive and Developmental Sciences project entitled, ‘The Use of Human Donor Milk in England: A Descriptive Study’ by Rita Marciano Alves Mousinho.

Dorrit Pollard-DaveyCurriculum Assistant (Educational Quality)Imperial College School of Medicine

The e-learning team in collaboration with the Pharmacology BSc won the prestigious Brandon Hall Silver Award in the “Best Results of a Learning Program” category for their e-learning modules, which are delivered to the Medical and Biomedical Science students opting for the Pharmacology BSc pathway.

The animations in the e-learning modules were creatively designed to have a bit of a 3D feel (see screenshots). The lower-order learning objectives (such as recall and list) were covered within e-learning modules, giving face-to-face teaching the scope to focus on the higher-order learning objectives (e.g. critical thinking, evaluation). The impact of this e-module on student engagement has also recently been published (BMC Medical Education (2016) 16:195).

Students’ comments

“because we had already been exposed to it [the receptors] before in the e-course, when we went over it again it was much easier to understand”

“the most efficient approach is to have the eLearning beforehand and then you have a contingency tutorial to check or to ask any questions or to briefly skim over it”

“so often you turn up to a lecture and they jump in so far beyond your knowledge… And you can’t ask effective questions because you don’t know the fundamentals to start with”

Dr Beth Holder, a researcher in Imperial’s Department of Medicine, struck Bronze at a competition in the House of Commons, for the excellence of her biological/biomedical research, walking away with a £1,000 prize.

Beth presented her biology research to dozens of politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of the poster competition SET for Britain, on Monday 7 March.

Her research, which focuses on communication between the mother’s immune system and the placenta during pregnancy, was judged against 59 other shortlisted researchers’ work and came out as one of the three winners.

Beth said,

“It may surprise people that, despite it’s vital role in pregnancy at giving everyone the best start in life, the placenta is considered the least understood organ in the human body. My work aims to understand how the mother’s immune system communicates with the placenta and baby during pregnancy using microscopic ‘parcels’ called exosomes that send messages between cells in the human body. This communication between mother and placenta may be particularly important in cases when the mother’s immune system is altered, such as inflammation, infection or allergy. I was delighted to have this fantastic opportunity to communicate my research at SET for BRITAIN, and thrilled to win the bronze award. I hope that I raised the profile of placental research, and highlighted the importance of funding further research in this area.”

SET for Britain aims to help politicians understand more about the UK’s thriving science and engineering base and rewards some of the strongest scientific and engineering research being undertaken in the UK.

Stephen Metcalfe MP, Chair of the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee, sponsors of the Bronze Award for Biological and Biomedical Sciences, said: “This annual competition is an important date in the parliamentary calendar because it gives MPs an opportunity to speak to a wide range of the country’s best young researchers.

“These early career engineers, mathematicians and scientists are the architects of our future and SET for Britain is politicians’ best opportunity to meet them and understand their work.”

Dr Mark Downs, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Biology, said: “Scientists and politicians both have major roles in addressing some of society’s biggest challenges, from climate change to food security. SET for Britain is a rare opportunity for politicians to meet some of our most promising early career scientists and understand their work.

“It is important that MPs make policy decisions informed by evidence, and a greater mutual understanding between MPs and scientists will improve this. The Government needs to ensure the UK continues to lead the world in biological research where we have enormous strength”.

Prof. Richard Vaughan-Jones, President of The Physiological Society, said “The UK has an excellent biomedical research base for which physiology provides fundamental understanding and direction. SET for Britain provides a unique opportunity for parliamentarians to engage with the scientific research that government funds and recognise the skills of our scientists training and working in the UK. The Physiological Society is extremely pleased to continue its longstanding support for this event.”

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee runs the event in collaboration with the Council for Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Physics, The Physiological Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Biology, with financial support from Essar, the Clay Mathematics Institute, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), the Institute of Biomedical Science, the Bank of England and the Society of Chemical Industry.

Dr Claire Fletcher, of the Androgen Signalling Laboratory, Division of Cancer, has been awarded a prestigious Young Investigator Award by the Prostate Cancer Foundation of the USA. The stated aim of the PCF in creating these awards, which are very rarely awarded outside of the US, is “to identify a cohort of future research leaders who will keep the field of prostate cancer research vibrant with new ideas.”

Claire will be using the award to pursue her innovative translational research programme at Imperial College, mentored both by Professor Charlotte Bevan in her host laboratory and also by Prof Johann de Bono at the Institute of Cancer Research, cementing and developing the collaboration between the 2 laboratories and indeed institutes. Her work focuses on identification of microRNA drivers of therapy resistance in prostate cancer, with the aim of both increasing therapy options and also of providing biomarkers to enable effective patient stratification.

“I am thrilled to have received a Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award. This grant will allow me to vastly accelerate our promising research into the mechanisms through which prostate cancers continually evolve to develop resistance to even the most effective drugs – an area which remains poorly understood.

In the future, this knowledge will help us to develop more effective therapeutics and tailor treatments to individual patients.” – Dr Claire Fletcher.

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PC) is the most prevalent malignancy of Western males, affecting 1 in 8 men in their lifetime. Relapse on first-line anti-androgen treatment occurs almost invariably, leading to advanced ‘castration-resistant PC (CRPC), metastasis and patient death. Next-generation therapeutics that target the androgen receptor (AR) or alternative oncogenic signalling pathways, alongside taxane-based chemotherapeutics, demonstrate efficacy in the CRPC setting. However, only 50% of men respond to taxane-based chemotherapy, and acquired resistance to novel AR-targetting agents is emerging due to intra-tumoral androgen production or AR amplification. This necessitates urgent identification of new therapeutics and drug targets for CRPC, and discovery of resistance-predicting biomarkers.

MiRs are small 18-22nt RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression. They can function as ‘oncomiRs’ or tumour suppressors and show altered expression in CRPC. They are readily detectable in bodily fluids from patients, demonstrating considerable biomarker potential, and represent ideal therapeutics due to their small size, high stability and low toxicity. I have previously demonstrated that miRs dramatically alter AR activity, growth and metastatic potential in CRPC and that levels of putative oncomiRs are altered by novel CRPC drug treatment. Further, miRs are associated with chemotherapy resistance.

This project will use small RNA sequencing and functional assays to identify miRs that play fundamental roles in development of resistance to mechanistically-distinct novel CRPC agents in clinically-relevant CRPC models, and will generate miR biomarker ‘signature’ arrays that can predict resistance to such therapeutics. This will inform clinical management of PC and avoid the considerable morbidity and toxicity of agents that may not benefit a given patient. Development of therapies targeting resistance-promoting miRs may provide an additional treatment option for CRPC patients, increasing disease survival.

The award ceremony was held at the Hilton Bonnet Creek Hotel on 15th November 2015 where Dr Armen Roupenian presented the certificate to me with a monetary prize.

The work explained how the calf muscle pump works in augmenting the venous return and the contribution of the GEKO device in achieving this target. Suggestions were made as to how the device could be improved to maximise efficiency in the prevention of DVT.

Professor Beate Kampmann has been nominated by the Medical Research Council (MRC) to join AcademiaNet – Expert Database for Outstanding Female Academics.

The Robert Bosch Stiftung, in cooperation with Spektrum der Wissenschaft (Nature Publishing Group), has set up this exclusive expert database in 2010. It was launched by German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and it is the only Web site of its kind that shows profiles only of outstandingly qualified women who are best in their field. They all have been nominated by highly recognized science and research institutions. To date, more than 1,700 profiles of female top-class researchers of all disciplines are in the database.

The website (www.academia-net.org) is supplemented by editorials such as up-to-date news reports, scientific articles and interviews with female scientists and has registered over one million clicks to date. The high number of visitors to the database is not the only indication of its success: all four female scientists awarded the Leibniz Prize in 2014 – the most important research prize in Germany – are members of AcademiaNet.

The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) paid tribute to some of the country’s leading medical researchers at its prestigious SAMRC Scientific Merit Awards in Cape Town. The esteemed President’s Award as well as the Platinum, Gold and Silver Awards were presented to scientists whose work has had a monumental impact on health science in South Africa.

Professor Wilkinson, Senior Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine, received the Gold Award on 29 October. His work has focused on clinical and immunological aspects of tuberculosis – particularly in the context of HIV infection.

Mr Lattimer collected the award on behalf of his team at the EVF Annual Meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, for their presentation; ‘Increasing thigh compression pressure correlates with a reduction in the venous drainage index of air plethysmography.’

This highly competitive award has provided a grant of £1,500 for Mr Lattimer to present his team’s work on venous drainage at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Venous Forum, to be held in Orlando, Florida, next February. This is acknowledged to be the most prestigious venous meeting globally.

Dr Mick Jones receives multiple teaching awards in 2014/15

Dr Jones, Reader in Molecular Medicine in the Department of Medicine and Course Director of the MSc in Molecular Medicine, picked up numerous teaching awards this year:

The top prize at the Department of Medicine Teaching Awards, 2015 for Outstanding Contribution to Education

The awards for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Supervision and the Top Contributor to Teaching based on the 2014 Teaching Hours Survey

The award for the Best Teaching for Postgraduates at the 2015 Student Academic Choice Awards

Professor Charlotte Bevan appointed to the Executive Committee of the BACR

The School of Medicine are very pleased to announce that two of our 5th year Medical students, Zeena Mougammadou-Aribou and Sam Tindall both won prizes at this year’s Royal Society of Medicine Norah Schuster Prize.

This prestigious prize is awarded for the best student essay relating to the history of medicine. Zeena and Sam (seen below at the Award Ceremony in April) won the prize for the mini-projects which they conducted during the History of Medicine specialist course, taken as part of their intercalated BSc. They each received a £100 book token and a year’s membership of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Zeena’s mini-project considered a surgical procedure which was marketed in the 18th century for the management of teething in children. Interestingly, until the 19th century a large portion of child mortality was attributed to teething, which was perceived to be a dangerous period in child development. The surgical procedure was invented by a man named Joseph Hurlock and it involved cutting the gums of teething children so the teeth could come through unobstructed. Hurlock used clever and innovative marketing techniques to ensure that his procedure became widely used. However, these techniques were also controversial; for example, criticising the reliability of nurses and the effectiveness of other techniques used for teething infants.

Sam’s mini-project examined how a strong focus on the Western Front during World War 1 meant that the Italian Front was overlooked in historical writing and therefore in public perception. The war took place in the Alps between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The terrain and weather conditions made this battle unique in many ways when compared with the rest of WWI. The injuries and ailments afflicting soldiers fighting in this region are therefore very different to those perceived to have affected soldiers at the time. This includes frost bite and the risk of avalanche in the winter, and lightning strikes and malaria in the summer.

The School of Medicine would like to congratulate Zeena and Sam on their excellent achievement and to thank Dr Neil Tarrant, the History of Medicine Course Director, and his team for all of their work on the course.

The Department of Medicine was delighted to hear last week that it has been granted an Athena SWAN Silver award in recognition of its commitment to address the underrepresentation of female academics in university STEMM departments.

The achievement reflects the fruits of actions completed and the impact of changes made since the department’s Bronze award in 2013. The gap between numbers of male and female academics is slowly closing, and academic promotion application and success rates are now slightly higher for women than men.

From the start of its Athena SWAN journey in 2012 the department (headed by Professor Martin Wilkins) took a broad approach by setting out to make changes to culture and organisation that would benefit all staff and students, and “building a strong and supportive academic community” is integral to its mission.

Developments since the Bronze award include a thriving mentoring scheme that is now being adopted by other departments, an annual Welcome reception for all new staff (and informative Welcome packs), an Academic & Family Life panel discussion programme open to the wider College, a DoM Life website, promotion support team and an Early Career Committee.

Many challenges remain for a department of nearly 1000 people spread across six campuses: ensuring that progress so far is both embedded and sustainable, fostering a supportive and interactive culture, and forging a clear departmental identity.

Madeleine Openshaw, a 5th year student at the Imperial College School of Medicine won the Student Presenter prize at the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC), London and South East Regional conference in January 2015.

Her emotive presentation entitled ‘In Loving Memory’: the role of sentimental objects in childhood bereavement’ was based on research performed during her humanities intercalated BSc at Imperial.

Maddy will be presenting her work again in June at the Annual GP Teachers Conference for our community based Imperial Primary Care teachers.

Dr Joanne Harris MRCP MRCGP MA(Med Ed)Deputy Head of Undergraduate School of MedicineImperial College London

Dr Maruthappu serves as Senior Fellow to Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, where he recently contributed to the Five Year Forward View, and in January, with Sir Bruce Keogh, launched the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA), a programme aiming to identify twenty tried and tested innovations from across the world and scale them in the NHS to improve patient care.

Outside of clinical practice he has a background in health systems research, policy and entrepreneurship, having published over 60 peer-reviewed articles, receiving over 50 awards and honours, advising organisations ranging from startups to the WHO, and serving as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.

Dr Maruthappu said “It was exciting to be included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Working in North West Thames has exposed me to a broad range of opportunities, both inside and outside of clinical practice, that I’m sure led to my nomination”.

Dr Maria Toro-Troconis, Mr Ashish Hemani and Dr Kevin Murphy won best paper award at the #design4learning conference run by the Open University (OU) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on the 26 & 27 November 2014 .

Earlier this year Dr. Brannigan was nominated for the Imperial College Teaching Excellence Award for 2013-14. The award was set up in 2003 to recognise excellent teaching among NHS staff. We are delighted to announce that the nomination was successful and Dr. Brannigan will be presented with her award at a ceremony on Tuesday 25th November at 5.30pm in the Glenister lecture theatre at Charing Cross.

Our senior research nurse Enrique Castro-Sanchez has been awarded a travel scholarship by the Florence Nightingale Foundation Trust. The scholarship is to enable Enrique to undertake a study in South Africa, Mozambique and Rwanda on building nursing capacity in antimicrobial stewardship: learning from low and middle income countries. The study builds on CIPM’s existing partnership with hospitals in Rwanda, including the work to reduce neonatal mortality and maternal and paediatric infection through improved patient safety in Rwanda, funded by THET Partnerships for Global Health.

The MEd Surgical Education Community would like to congratulate 2013 alumnus Mr Andrew Wainwright for winning the Robert Jones Gold Medal from the British Orthopaedic Association, after submitting an essay based on his MEd studies. Andrew, a consultant surgeon and Training Programme Director in Oxford, completed his MEd in Surgical Education with a Distinction and a dissertation entitled “A good pair of hands”. In the prize-winning essay he discussed the themes of competence, apprenticeship and craftsmanship in orthopaedic surgery today. By exploring the essence of what ‘having a good pair of hands’ means to surgeons, he proposed how this could improve the way that orthopaedic surgeons learn, teach, and assess surgical skills.